Let Me See
Sermon October 24, 2024
Title: Let Me See
Scripture: Mark 10:46-52
Lay Leader Deb Beutel
Have you ever walked through your neighborhood with someone who has never been there before, and watched them look around and then see what they see? If not, try it sometime. It’s amazing what a new person will notice about your street that you just don’t pay attention to anymore. Perhaps that’s a bit like how the crowd felt when Jesus stopped and responded to Bartimaeus in today’s text (Mark 10:46-52). Had the crowds gotten so used to Bartimaeus’s shouting that they’d neglected to actually pay attention to what he was saying? How many times had he called out for mercy, only to have his neighbors treat him as one more ignorable fixture in their lives? Now, maybe that’s not fair. Or, not entirely fair. Sometimes we choose not to pay attention because we feel helpless to do anything. Noticing would require us to do something. But whether we find ourselves more like the crowd or more like Bartimaeus—or perhaps a mixture of the two—there’s a good chance that some of us came to worship this morning struggling to see and feel seen, hear and be heard, to know and feel known.
So, how do we help each other notice what Jesus notices? Perhaps we need to prayerfully discern and commit to recognizing the areas of need in our community and the people crying out for mercy who have been ignored for too long. When we gather for worship, Jesus pays attention and asks us, “What do you want me to do for you?” May our answer lead us into greater connection and transformative relationships with God, self, neighbor, and creation. When Ken and I first bought our home in Lancaster, we loved the beautiful area surrounded by nature and God’s creation. We felt extremely blessed to have found this little slice of heaven. What we didn’t know at the time, was that in spite of our neighborhood and friends in the neighborhood and community that here in Lancaster County our Primary School and Middle School are BOTH Title One Schools, meaning that 90% of the children in attendance live below the poverty line. What finally helped us open our eyes and see the need in this community was Bethel’s involvement in Toys For Tots. And just yesterday Ken and I spent the majority of the day at the Northumberland Department of Social Services Annual Community Resource Fair, Spooky Edition, held at the Northumberland YMCA! What an incredible opportunity to connect with and serve our neighbors in need and to be serving along with so many other incredible organizations. I found myself sitting there reflecting on the fact that although Ken and I had always been supporters of various missions and community projects and programs some as far as Sierra Leone Africa, we had initially missed the very real need right here in our own community, and in our own backyard.
Lat week we reflected on serving together with humility and then as we listened to today’s text unfold, we discovered that the crowd told Bartimaeus to be quiet. They told him to keep to the margins, to stay away, to not interrupt. But he kept on shouting. Now here is the amazing part: Jesus asked him what he wanted. I know, you’re thinking, what is so amazing about that? He was shouting for attention. Of course, he is going to know what he wanted. But I have found that isn’t always true. Sometimes the loudest shouters don’t really know what they want. They only know that they aren’t happy, or aren’t getting their way, or are forced into some change, some position that they don’t want. So, they may be able to answer Jesus if he asks them, “What don’t you want?” Or “Why are you unhappy?” But Jesus doesn’t tend to ask what is wrong; he asks what would make it right? What do you want me to do for you? I loved the connection to this morning’s Psalter Reading in Psalm 34:1-8,19-22, when we heard in verse 4, “I sought the Lord, and he answered me, and delivered me from my fears. It is yet just another reminder that God wants us to communicate with him, to have a relationship with him. He wants us to seek him out and ask him just like it says in verse 6 of the Psalter reading, “This poor soul cried and was heard by the Lord and was saved from every trouble.”
Bartimaeus didn’t hesitate. “Let me see again.” Not, solve all my problems, or make bad things or bad people go away. Simply, “Let me see again.” Then from there, I’ll follow you. From there, I’ll let your will become my will as I daily search out the path that you would have me walk. Let me see again, so that I can be about the business of opening eyes to who you are and what you have to offer this world that clings to its blindness. Let me see again, so that I can find you whenever I need to.
We’ve been walking with Jesus through the tenth chapter of Mark for the last several weeks. And now we’re at the end, watching blind Bartimaeus receive his sight. And we wonder what we may have missed along the way. Would we have been among the hushers when the beggar at the gates of Jericho started shouting that day? Or would we have seen him as Jesus saw him? Not as a problem to be solved or an issue to be debated, but as a man with agency, with the ability to decide and determine and choose.
“Let me see,” Bartimaeus declares that sunny day outside the walls of Jericho. Maybe that should be our cry too. Our prayer and our hope. Maybe that should be our spiritual discipline this fall. Take a walk around the neighborhood and community around Bethel or Emmanuel, and ask yourself, what do I see? What draws your attention? What shouts to you as you pass? Let Jesus open your eyes to the familiar and maybe see it a whole new way.
Do we truly create an inviting and safe place for all our neighbors to come and worship with us? “Take heart, he is calling you.” Take heart, this message is for you. This hope is for you, and not just for us. Sure, we have blindnesses that need to be healed as well. Yes, we need to hear the voice of Jesus calling us and asking us what we need. We are a part of those to whom Jesus has come. But we often – knowingly or unknowingly – keep that message to ourselves, that voice, that partner with whom we walk as though he were our special possession and not the one who came to the whole world. Like James and John in last week’s text, we want to claim places of honor as our right, and sometimes we may not be an inviting to all our brothers and sisters in Christ as we could be.
What walking with Jesus and serving with Jesus and each other teaches us is that we aren’t the ones guiding the path. We aren’t the ones who are determining where to go. We’ve surrendered that responsibility when we decided to follow him. Bartimaeus saw that. We could learn from one who was blind but now sees. Because he asked. Let me see. In closing, I can’t think of a better way to summarize today’s message, “Let Me See,” than to recite the words of Contemporary Christian artist, Brandon Heath’s song, “Give Me Your Eyes So I Can See,”
Looked down from a broken sky
Traced out by the city lights
Breathe in the familiar shock of confusion and chaos
All those people goin' somewhere, why have I never cared?
Give me Your eyes for just one second
Give me Your eyes so I can see
Everything that I keep missin'
Give me Your love for humanity
Give me Your arms for the broken-hearted
The ones that are far beyond my reach
Give me Your heart for the ones forgotten
Give me Your eyes so I can see
I swear, I never thought that I was wrong
But I wanna second glance
So give me a second chance
To see the way You've seen the people all along
Give me Your eyes so I can see.